The daily herald. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1886-1887, 1887-03-29
TUESDAY. MARCH s0, 1887.
BRITISH DEGENERATION.

Englishmen have been prone to
regard with high disdain, not TO say
supercilousness, the prevalent practice,
in Federal and State legislative bodies
Of the United States, Of reading
speeches. 1t has been called, indeed,
an. " American" custom, and asserted
to be unknown, and something that
would not be tolerated in the parent
Legislature Of the world But what is
this we see, in a report Of the proceed
ings in the British House Of Commons
the second day of February, Ammo
Domini 1882 Surely it is incredible;
yet there it is, IN such respectable
and yeracious sheet as the Edinburgh
Scotsman. The debate was on Mr.
Parnells amendment to the loyal ad.
dress in answer to the speech from the
Throne. This is paragraph devoted
TO the "eHor' Of one of the tribunes
Of the people
The Commons, wholly unaffected by
the faint appeals made to them by Mr.
Smith on the previous night to bring
the "general debate" on the Address
to an early close, continued the dis
cursiye discussion throughout on We'd
nesday leisurcly and placidly. Mr.
Handel Cossham did not make much
by the point he gained in moving the
adjournment Of the House on Tuesday
night. The knowledge that he was to
open the debate yesterday appeared to
be accepted by the bulk Of the House
as a grant OF holiday. On the Treasury
Bench there were, indeed, two or three
members present, but during the three
quarters Of an hour consumed by the
hon. gentleman the front Opposition
bench was empty. He was himself
the only occupant Of the second bench,
from the corner Of which he addressed
the House, and members we're thinly
scattered to make show on the
benches behind. 1t was a truly touch
ing spectacle an hour before the House
met to-day to see nv Cossham seated
in solitary grandeer on the Liberal side
rehearsing his Grafton. When he was
in the middle Of his solitary recitation,
Mr.. Bradlaugh banged the door open
and exclaimed with grin, "Ha pre-
pairing, eh ?" Eyes" responded the
guilty Cossham, busting his papers
away. He read his speech from be-
ginning to end, and the oifense against
Parliamentary practice was so fragrant
that the Speaker turned away his head
and occasionally closed his eyes to
avoid the necessity of taking the initia
tive in noticing it. Nobody else seemed
to mind. In the present Parliament
the practice Of reading speeches more
or less openly is spreading rapidly, and
in an audience largely composed of
members who themselves had manu-
scripts in their pockets, it was hardly
wonderful that there was no protest.
The nap of British pride in parlia-
mentary traditions and dignity is stroked
the right way in the above report only
for an instant, by the reporter charac-
terizing the odense as "aagrant so
much SO that the speaker turned his
bewigged head away and forgoi English
disinterestedness in everything under
the sun so much, in the shock to his
sense of propriety, as to actually close
his eyes to the humiliating spectacle OF
member reading his speech. But
alas, the too candid scribe the next
moment ruffles the ermine the wrong
way and sends cold shiver down the
English back, wherever the world
circling drumbeat is heard, by the
irigid statement Of fact that in the
present Parliament the practice Of read
ing speeches is spreading rapidly, and
that on the occasion referred to there
was no protest uttered against the mis-
demeanor because there were too many
culprits among the judges Alack-a-
day Is this one Of the results of
lowering the franchise ?